Three Vignettes of War and Peace
Manchuria – August 9th, 1947
I lie awake. It is the summer of 1947 in Japanese occupied Manchuria and I can feel a cool breeze and the sound of cicadas coming in the open window. I gaze at the ceiling wondering how much longer we are going to wait until we can head back to Japan. It’s been almost two years since the war against America and we have begun to grow worried over our safety. The Russian Army has taken over Manchuria, while the Japanese military left us to fend for ourselves. Only a small number of Japanese officials are left to advocate for us and bring us supplies. Today we received a package of dumplings, and potassium cyanide. The dumplings were tasteless and half-cooked but nobody complains. It is a price we have to pay for living in luxury so many years. The potassium cyanide is a poison that the government told us to keep on us at all times. They instructed us to drink it if we were ever in jeopardy of getting raped by Russian soldiers. I have heard stories of Russian soldiers doing horrible things to Japanese women. They would come into town shouting, “Dawai, dawai”, meaning, “give it to us”. Because of this, my sisters and I shaved our heads and wore men’s clothing so that we look like boys. The family has been living in a constant state of fear and uncertainty since dad was taken as a prisoner of war in Siberia.
My mother has been talking about moving into a smaller house to avoid burglary and hostility from outsiders. It feels strange because I have lived in the Inaba Mansion for my entire life. It is a beautiful two-story house with ten bedrooms, a garden, and a large golden partition in the entrance. We have a number of maids and servants working for us while on the other side of the street, we can see Chinese peasants living in houses made of mud. The other day, Mr. Kagawa, an author from the mainland came to stay overnight. He left his shirt hanging outside after our servant had washed it and the next day it was missing. Some of us suspected that the Chinese neighbors had stolen it, but my mother went to the store and bought him a new shirt. I didn’t feel like blaming the poor neighbors. We are living in extremes. Our family is the rich and prosperous, while they are the poor and desperate. We are living in a class society and there is nothing we can do to change it.
Ever since I was a little girl I have wondered why those people, who are just like us live in such poverty, while we live lavishly. Are we not all human beings born into different circumstances? Why is it that we can have nice clothing and food, while the children next door do not even have underwear, or shoes? It angers me to think of the oppression that our government imposes upon these people. They told us that the Japanese Empire is superior to the Chinese, and that we have earned the right to occupy their land. There is something very wrong going on here.
I feel myself drifting into sleep. I’m wondering about the future of our family. How are we going to get out of China before it’s too late? I wonder if Grandfather is going to get better from his illness. What are we going to do about our possessions? Our house? What is going to become of the Chinese peasants? What is happening to Dad in Siberia? I hope he is still alive. Sleep.
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Tule Lake, California – January 20th, 1942
Awake. To the sound of the alarms. I see my brother and the others get out of his barrack and start to get dressed. I only got a few hours of sleep last night and I rub my eyes to get the blood flowing in my head. The smell of musty old socks and sour body odor cling to my nostrils as I lift myself out of the bunk bed. I get ready and head down to the dining hall, where everyone is busy eating luke-warm soup and stale bread for breakfast. I’ve gotten to the point where I just shovel the food down and proceed with my day without thinking. After the meal, we exchange a few words and then go outside in the freezing cold to walk to the schoolroom. I look at the high desert mountains in the distance covered with ice and snow as we walk across the clearing. In the foreground I can see a barbed wire fence and an American soldier smoking a cigarette while talking casually with another guard. I breathe a sigh of relief when I finally get into the schoolroom, which is not much warmer than outside, but better than being in the cold wind. My friends Emmia and Kibura greet me as I sit in my seat, still shivering from the cold. We talk idly for a few minutes until our teacher comes in and begins lecturing about world history. Goddamn she’s boring. She is a very nice teacher though. Unlike some of the other authorities at camp, she sympathizes with the Japanese Americans. I wish there were more Americans that could see from her perspective. Maybe then, we wouldn’t be in this desolate place. I stare out the window into the distance and admire the landscape. What a beautiful place. Haunting, but beautiful.
I begin to daydream about my life before the Internment Camp. I recall one of the last nights before we were forced to leave, I went out to the movies with some of my friends from the neighborhood. It was only a day or two after Pearl Harbor and people were pretty rattled up about the surprise attack. There was the annual fair in Mountain View going on and a lively atmosphere was in the air. As we approached the fair, we noticed stares and condescending looks from people. After a while we grew uncomfortable and decided to walk around the fair to get to the theater. The movie was enjoyable; a quick escape from the harsh reality that stood before us. At that time we could not even imagine what life would be like in a few weeks. After it was over, we left and I couldn’t help the feeling of awkwardness as we walked through the town. “Jap…”, some of them muttered. The feeling of anger and frustration boiled up inside of me like a bottle of champagne about to burst. After growing up in America for the last nineteen years of my youth I have been out casted. I have become the scapegoat of American society because of my race. I feel a mixture of confusion, fury, lack of control and self-pity as I watch the light snowfall outside. Why me? At least I am not alone.
Before our family arrived at the Tule Lake Internment Camp, the government made the Japanese American men answer a series of questions. For the most part, they were broad and insignificant except for the last two. Questions 27 and 28. Question 27 asked if we were willing to serve in the United States Armed Forces, while 28 asked if would swear allegiance to the US and foreswear allegiance to the Empire of Japan. This stirred up a huge controversy among families. Almost all of the first generation parents strongly opposed their sons to go into the war. There is no doubt that the American government has taken away our rights as citizens. Hell, the Germans are part of the opposing army too, but they aren’t forced to pack their bags and leave all of their possessions behind. It’s downright racist. And this is why the first generation parents are so enraged. Some of the second-generation sons have a different outlook though. Of course they understand the ignorance of the American government, but they want to fight for their pride. They feel obligated to prove their citizenship and loyalty to the American government, even if it means killing their own people. I am a No-No Boy, as they call us. I refuse to serve the American government. Not after they took away our house and all of our savings. Not after they called us Japs and took away our dignity. Not after they put us out in the scorching hot summer desert and let us freeze in the cold winter.
At the moment I feel trapped in a personal quarrel of self-identity. I was born an American of Japanese descent, yet I have not stepped a foot onto Japan yet. So where does that leave me? The government doesn’t recognize me as a US citizen, and I am clearly not a Japanese citizen. I am stuck in a limbo.
On the bright side, I met a wonderful girl a few weeks ago. Her name is Tomi and I like her a lot. She makes the cold and lonely desert seem like a better place to be. Maybe after all of this is over we can drive down to San Francisco and have some fun. We can go to the beach, drink beer, watch movies together, live our lives and forget about all of this shit. How I long for the day we can leave this place and be free.
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Cupertino, California – April 23rd, 2010
I’m sitting the local coffee shop trying to gather my thoughts. I’m thinking about my life, my heritage, my descent. I am a fourth generation Japanese American. My father was born in Mountain View, California just like me, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His parents, Larry and Tomi, grew up in California as well, and met in the Tule Lake internment camp. My mother was born in Japan, and moved to California when she was 19 years old where she met my father. Her mother grew up in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation and eventually snuck back into Japan after two years of waiting. She met my grandfather, married, and had two daughters. And all because of this, I exist.
Why was I born into a Japanese American family? I could have been born into an Irish family, or Chinese family, or German. It is as though war, chaos and randomness has somehow brought me into my existence. My grandparents were born into a time of turmoil and warfare. They were not able to earn an education or live their youth freely and carelessly. I have imagined myself in my grandfather’s shoes at Tule Lake, scorching under the brutal summer sun and have grown angry and even depressed at the fact that my country has done this to my close relative. He was a young nineteen year old just like me, but he was suppressed behind barbed wire for years. I can remember when I was probably five or six when he told me, “finish every last grain of rice, because each one is another day you will survive in the desert”. Because of this, I feel fortunate to be born into an accepting and relatively peaceful society. As I look back at all of the prejudice, violence and hatred in the past, I can only hope for a brighter future for the world.
I long for the evolution of mankind out of barbarism and selfish authoritarianism. I see us not merely as society of individuals, but a collection of populations thriving to achieve the ideal forms of truth and justice. Hegel refers to this idea as the “world spirit”: an evolving body of ideas and experiences pushing forward into the future of humanity. As we experience acts of barbarism and oppression, we collectively begin to understand the flaws in human nature, and evolve to rid ourselves of past influences and ideologies. We have seen acts of oppression reiterated time and time again throughout history. The Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, the Internment Camps, the genocides in Darfur, Bosnia and Tibet are only a fraction of the tragic events in modern history. My family has been both the oppressed people and the oppressors. Because of this, I can sympathize for both sides of the equation and understand the lack of control that ordinary people have in their struggle for peace and justice.
As the 21st Century dawns, I hope to see a change from the past ideologies of ignorance, racism and dominance. Instead of returning to cycles of oppression and warfare, I believe that the new generation of mankind has the intelligence to create a world with mutually supportive, non-competitive groupings of populations. I want people to care about the things that matter. Creativity, justice, and the dynamic human spirit that refuses to submit to ignorance. I feel that I am obligated to spread my knowledge onto latter generations and heighten the consciousness of human kind further towards truth and righteousness. I refuse to conform to a generation of apathetic underachievers. I ponder this while I drink my coffee and the tattooed barista blares loud, Bay Area hip-hop from the speakers. The punks outside are laughing boisterously while smoking cigarettes and shoving each other around. Like I said, this process of evolution will take time, but eventually we will see the beautiful truth. That would be nice.
(Written in Fall 2009)